Here’s another take on the blinged-up cupcakes I did for the same customer a few months ago. I call these Glam Cakes! These are cognac cupcakes with a cognac butter cream with a hint of orange and cocoa. If it’s not clear in the pics, those are supposed to be lipstick, watches, gold bracelet, and sunglasses (which, I admit, kind of look like Madonna’s bras circa 1989).

Like this:

Not every pastry I make has to have a millions pounds of decoration piled on top of it. First, and foremost, it has to taste good. And sometimes a well made cupcakes doesn’t need all the embellishments to make it fantastic! These were for a baby shower for a daddy-to-be of a set of twins! (Boy and girl!) How adorable is that? I opted to go with a more simple approach to the deco so that the yumminess of the cupcakes weren’t overshadowed and it didn’t make the babyshower too over-the-top feminine.

My craft beer group is lead by one of my dearest friends! Here’s another sampling of my Craft Beer Cupcakes: Death by Chocolate and Cookies n Cream. Both cakes are baked with Southern Tier’s Warlock Imperial Pumpkin Stout for that last hint of fall on the back palate.

The “S” stands for SUPER or STEVE! They’re little mini oreos with piped frosting. The mini beer mugs are made of fondant and topped with a frosting “head”.

I love a customer who knows what she wants! This was a very fun order to fill using only gold, purple, and black with the M.A.C. theme! The flavors of these fashion-forward themed confections were Red Velvet and Death by Chocolate!

We, the un-coupled, tend to get a little blue during the middle of the month of February. Some genius came up with a great idea to combat that:

!!!Singles Appreciation Day!!!

a.k.a.: S.A.D.

And who doesn’t love a little humor and a little snark on this overly commercialized day of love? Order your Snarky Heart cupcakes today and celebrate on YOUR terms! The toppers are made of fondant and the lettering is piped with frosting. Do you need these to travel? How about a decorated sugar cookie instead? Get your snark in cookie form!

Thank you so much to my buddy Terry who fixed a pretty horrible picture and turned it into this pretty display you see below! Thank goodness someone is handy with a photo editing program. I’m usually lost!

I’ve already done a Pac Man themed cupcake display in the past, and you can check it out right Here. What I have today is one of my favorite Geek buddy’s birthday Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man cupcakes for him and his cousin. I had the pleasure of doing their dual birthday cake last year: Gem & Thunder Cats.

I have been itching to make Dr. Who cupcakes for YEARS! Personally, I’m a fan of the 10th Doctor, but these were in the theme of the 11th Doctor. Let me just say that I’ve made a few cakes / cupcakes for this particular family already, and they have been awesomely geek-themed. The Pac Man and Minecraft cupcakes were all for this family, and it was nothing less than a pleasure to do them!

I know my Tardis could have come out a little better than that. Dainty, tiny writing just isn’t my strong suit. Still, this has been the highlight of my year thus far as far as what’s come out of my Dungeon!

My buddy Josh sent me the cutest picture of some Cookie Monster cupcakes that he demanded I replicate. Naturally, the challenge was accepted. These are not an original design. You’ll see one version or another of these cupcakes all over the net. Some people actually suggest using blue food colored frosting to achieve uniform color, but if I put that much food color into as much frosting as it would take to get his head shaped that round, then my buddy would be pooping Smurfs for a week. I opted with the blue coconut instead. Yes, you can still make out the chocolate hazelnut colored frosting below, but the coconut can be scraped off if the eater is not a coconut fan, and the flavor of the cupcake, which is banana w/ chocolate hazelnut frosting, is not compromised.

Queenie Cakes has been swinging in the Vegan playground. No one will ever say I don’t try to do my best for all of my customers! My specialty is not Vegan, Gluten Free, or any type of dietary restrictive style of baking AT ALL. I respect my fellow bakers that ONLY make these styles of desserts, but my focus is on flavor, appearance, and the general happiness of the eater.

I love butter, real sugar, eggs and dairy. They produce some of the most delicious, airy, beautiful cakes I could hope for.

But, when a long-time customer asks me to make them vegan desserts so they can still enjoy my wares, I won’t say no. I have separate bakeware, mixing tools, and bowls to prep these cakes. And, to my surprise, even her non-Vegan guests loved the results.

Hello, Vegan world. I won’t become a permanent resident, but I don’t mind visiting every now and again! 😉

Instead of flowers, send one of these!! Those are seven jumbo cupcakes up top, and a cake filled pot at the bottom (lined with tissue paper, of course.)

This is the first of a series of Bouquets that I’ll be making. They seem to be popular with the test group I tried them out on, and with a few tweaks, I don’t doubt that they will become a best seller! This particular bouquet is $35. I can probably make different sizes (smaller or bigger), but this will be the standard size for now.

Cupcake Bouquet- $35

7 Jumbo Cupcakes up top, and Cake-filled pot below

They can be made in different sizes, but this is my standard size now.

This was a Sweet 16 order which was based on a concept the customer found online. Who doesn’t love a little 8-bit action? I absolutely love making gamer / geek themed cakes. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine. Add the fact that 80’s video games are on par with my generation….Well, maybe I shouldn’t date myself. Enjoy the Gamer Love!

On a side note, this was for a younglady’s Sweet 16! I think that’s absolutely kickass. =)

Geeks, nerds, techies, gadget freaks; they all hold a soft spot in my heart. Nothing’s sexier than a Smartie in my book! So, you can imagine how much fun I had creating these 1-Up Cakes for my Gamer friends.

The NYCGI (New York City Game Industry) holds monthly meet-ups for game-minded folks looking to break into the game development world. Here’s their website for more information on that: http://nycgameindustry.com . Where do they meet, you ask? At this VERY awesome bar in Brooklyn called Barcade. Not only does it offer wall to wall local micro-brews (for you beer snobs out there), but they are jam-packed with all the retro arcade games from years far gone. I’m talking Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede, & Asteroids, just to name a few. This spot offers plenty to the Game Makers and the Game Players.

So, I didn’t have enough time to make enough toppers for all 24 cupcakes. The cupcakes below are called “Strawberry Kisses”. It’s vanilla cupcakes, drenched in milk chocolate Godiva liquor, filled with strawberry filling, and topped off with chocolate frosting “kisses”. One of my favorite flavors!

I'm a control freak! Classic NES Gun (Duck Hunt, anyone?), SUPER-CLASSIC NES Controller, and Classic NES Game Cartridge (Those who get the Blow Me reference are as old as me!) on top of Strawberry Kisses Cupcakes

And now for a couple of close-ups. I’m a horrible photographer. I wish the pictures were better, but what can I do? I’ll take a class eventually, and hopefully the pictures of my cakes will finally do the originals some justice. For the record, I didn’t take these pictures, but the one’s I did take didn’t come out any better. It may be time for a new camera…

Can you name the Pac-Man ghosts? This one's Blinky. (That's the Guitar Hero guitar in the background.)

A big nostalgic High Five to anyone who comments on why I wrote "Blow Me". (There were many questions, I'm sad to say. They just don't get it....)

My Second Favorite of the bunch! The classic NES controller. Many awesome memories with this baby in my hands!

Take home treats for Adam & Vanessa! ❤

So, my little fondant gamer toppers are not PERFECT. I’m missing some logos and there are a few proportion/ratio problems. With time (or lack thereof) always being my enemy, I had to forgo a few details here and there. However, this is the MOST fun I have ever had working with fondant. It brought back a lot of fantastic childhood memories, and I was actually there to see the Gamer’s reactions to my work, and to see them enjoy gobbling them up!

Frankly, it’s one of the proudest moments I’ve had in my baking career; making something with my own two hands in the images of things I loved for awesome, appreciate people who were thrilled and happy with my efforts. You can’t ask for much for than that!

This past weekend marked my mom’s 50th Birthday. Instead of some huge ostentatious cake, she opted for cupcakes. So, I whipped up a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. The middle of the flowers are red piping gel and pink strawberry frosting. The butterflies are made of Merken’s chocolate.

That’s just my fancy way of saying I made cute cupcakes with little handmade fondant sculpted “herps” or reptiles on top. (Rather than have you think I made cupcakes in the shape of some ghastly STD!) There were turtles, leopard geckos, anoles, and snakes. Oh, my!

I just wish I took better pictures. As always, time was a factor and I chose to get them to the customer on time rather than pose them up for pictures. I boxed them up and snapped as many shots as I could before I had to go. Such is life!